房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

"What if my feet still touch the ground here where I stand now...?"

"...?"

The boy asked and the examiners looked at each other.

"Fine, show us."

Said the blue-haired woman.

"Teacher Perserios, I need to be clear about one thing first – since I have so little mana after I'll use the utility spell I have in mind I would have barely enough mana for the defense and utility exams... Can it be allowed for me to show off the spells I would have used in those two exams now, and be graded based on that...?"

The black-haired boy explained and looked at the examinators with hopeful eyes.

The three teachers didn't answer immediately, instead, they leaned towards each other and started whispering.

"Technically that shouldn't be allowed, don't you think?"

"Yes, of course, but technically we never had a student with a darkness attribute, aren't you curious?"

"Let's just give him a chance, what's the worst that could happen? If it won't be any good we just give him very weak for the defense and utility."

"No, the utility should be at least moderate – no – strong. That silencing spell is extremely complicated and useful."

"For who? Maybe an assassin or a pervert trying to sneak into a women's bath..."

"No... lord Shuze made a valid point. Making no sound could be the best spell ever for a spy – Imagine having someone like that serving our kingdom. We should encourage him, I also think that his utility capacity should be marked strong with just the muffle spell he showed us already."

"We don't need to imagine how having a darkness magician serving our kingdom would end up like – we had the example of that three centuries ago!"

"That happened because a group of twenty transcended darkness magicians was basically let loose to do their own thing and got corrupted!"

"Enough. Let's see his other spells in action first – if our colleague will not be impressed, we will settle for moderate in utility."

"Fine. I agree with lord Shuze, he has the seniority after all."

The examiners straightened their backs and nodded their heads.

"Show it to us, if it's good, we will evaluate other categories based on what we see here."

"Thank you, sir!"

Declared Kros and Zoemi bowed his head politely.

The black-haired boy stopped himself from showing off how happy he was as with how his face was, positive emotions didn't look too good.

...anyway...

If his calculations were correct, after displaying his skills he would have exactly five-point-one-tenth of his mana remaining after drinking two vials of the mana potion.

As long as there will be no unexpected twists, there will be one full vial left in his possession and he will fully complete his master's command!

Without further ado, Zoemi prepared two vials,

He opened the first one and put it in his mouth, holding it like a cigarette

"Shadow connect."

The scarred boy mumbled and a thread of darkness not thicker than a hair has shot out from his shadow and connected to the shadow of the combat dummy thirty feet away.

"Shadow expansion."

At his command, his very own shadow came alive and rose up to stand beside him like a paper-sheet-thin semi-transparent dark wall.

"Shadow gate."

After the black-haired boy muttered his next incantation, his shadow's color deepened turning it into the murky black, completely nontransparent shade.

|Not silky slick darkness that the ones I encountered used...|

The elderly light magician stroked his chin and nodded his head, solidifying his theory about the black-haired boy.

Meanwhile, Zoemi leaned into the shadow, but didn't pass through it at all - instead, the upper half of his body disappeared!

Only his lower half and the hand of the left arm - in which he was holding the second mana potion - were still in place.

"!!!!"

It looked extremely creepy no matter which side it was seen, and all the examiners – even Kros Rul Shuze – flinched when they saw it happen.

While they were busy getting creeped out, the black-haired student was giving his best.

Without any delay between him entering the shadow by the examiners, the boy's upper body emerged from the shadow of the short-ranged dummy and he stabbed the armor from below - since he couldn't exactly reach the place where the heart would be, he just brute force it and ripped through the lower back part of the armor.

As the effect of the muffle spell had a certain period of activity and it did not run out since he used it while demonstrating his capability at short distance dummy - it all happened in complete silence.

Truth to be told since he emerged from an awkward angle, the teachers only realized that he had already attacked the target only because they were alarmed by the sudden burst of a vibrant red light from the dummy's insides.

"...wheeew..."

Zoemi closed his eyes and breathed out - was already getting a little tipsy from using a large amount of mana, so before he dived back into the shadow, he gulped down the blue liquid and spew the empty vial back to the darkness from whence he emerged.

"...!"

The effects of the potion were indisputable – the moment it passed through his throat he felt his getting mana replenishing in real-time as his body.

With that he slipped back into the shadow, holding his back as he was traveling through the darkness.

Still, although the mana potion's effectiveness couldn't be disputed – at least for someone with as little mana as Zoemi had - it couldn't be said that the sensation of his mana reservoir getting refilled at a much greater speed than his natural one, was a pleasant feeling.

Probably the best way to describe how it felt like was – the sensation of getting splashed with a bucket of ice-cold water and then hit with the bucket itself.

On one hand, his dizziness disappeared just like that.

But on the other, his head started throbbing so much as if he got a piece of red hot metal nailed through his forehead....